England - Lake District Tour, Modern Lamp Post / Getting Lost in Flight

As mentioned several times before in this blog, I was a student pilot once and got to fly around a little black and white Cessna 150 (tail number niner-four-golf) out of Brown Airport in Orange, Texas, now known as Orange County Airport.  My instructor was Ed Feuge, an awesome teacher - one of the best - who worked a day job at DuPont.  Until the funds were re-prioritized I made it all the way up to solo cross-countries and practicing stalls, etc for the FAA check ride.  For the practice sessions I would head out by myself to the practice field, somewhere north of I-10 where there was nothing but forest below.

One of my cross country flights ended well but there was a hiccup somewhere in the middle of my outbound leg.  I had climbed up to my designated altitude of 6,500 ft on the way to Lufkin for a round-trip there and back, and was tracking my position using VOR out of Jasper along with ADF from the destination.  Having filed a VFR flight plan I depended on landmarks below, comparing them to my nav charts.

It went along OK for a while, but about 30 minutes into the flight I looked down and found that nothing matched.  There was a railroad track and a road alongside, but they were on the wrong side of each other!  I checked and re-checked, but still it made no sense...I was not where I thought I was or should be.  But alas...there was a small town ahead!  All towns have water towers with their name on it, don't they?  I decided to position the airplane directly to the south of the town as I decreased altitude to 1,000 ft AGL, the lowest legal limit over a populated area.

As I approached the town, now traveling due north, I flew a little to the right of the water tower and sure enough, there was the name "Zavalla", a town I could identify on the map.  Now all I had to do was turn x-number of degrees toward Lufkin, making a small correction for the wind, and regain my altitude.

And it worked!  The nose of my little craft was spot-on the center of the airfield as I approached.  All I had to do then was descend to the downwind leg of the pattern and put'er down!  Worked like a charm.  It was a three-point landing, all three wheels hit the paint in my parking spot, and the lady in the FBO kissed my logbook to make a lipstick print.  It was quite the adventure...